Saskatoon veteran's office expected to reopen in 2016

Veteran’s Affairs minister Kent Hehr has repeated the Liberal promise to reopen nine veteran’s affairs offices within a year in interviews and speeches this week.

Saskatoon’s former office was among the nine closed down by the federal Conservative government in 2014.

With word that the offices are expected to reopen, Carl Gannon, president of the veteran’s affairs employees union, said it was a great start.

“It’s a very positive development. It’s not the end. There’s still a lot more work that has to be done in supporting our veterans and supporting the front line workers that support them as well,” he said.

Gannon said the reopened offices can’t come soon enough for workers left to manage higher caseloads.

“Morale is still very low within the department. We know that the cavalry is coming, we know that the help is coming … (but) nothing has changed as of right now,” he said.

While he acknowledged that many laid-off staff members may have moved on to other careers, Gannon said the union wants to see management rehire as many of the experienced employees that got let go as possible.

We want to make sure that whoever we bring in, we’re able to bring in as many people as we possibly can that are able to hit the ground running right from day one. Because the reality is, we need help and we needed help last year,” he said.

So far, no firm date has been set for when Saskatoon’s office might be open again.